Plastic Surgery, "ancient art but young science”, is a formal teaching in many Medical Courses at the University of Pavia since the last 15 years.

Within the Harvey Medicine and Surgery Course, Plastic Surgery is in the second semester of the 4th year, provides 2 University Credits within the integrated course in Skin Diseases and is amongst the first clinical teachings the students are exposed to. Its body of knowledge is founded on solid biological and anatomical bases and involves a huge variety of clinical scenarios the physician has to face in her/his everyday practice.

The scope of the course is to build a solid knowledge that would allow the physician to recognize and understand the wide spectrum of pathologies that require the Plastic Surgery expertise.

The new course organization is based upon a solid pact between teachers and students and is founded on the mutually responsible interpretation of the University Credit, the unit of measurement of work students and teachers are required to undertake: teachers and students therefore actively work together for a common objective. The new on-line approach through the KIRO website provides the theoretical bases of the course. The students are expected to study the topic prior to the lesson as the latter is conceived as an interactive development of the students' knowledge. Therefore, the University Credit starts with the students' contribution (individual preliminary study) and is then followed by the teacher's one (the interactive lesson).

Among the
most common causes of mortality and morbidity in the developed Countries are diseases of the respiratory system,
specifically, asthma, lung cancer, emphysema, chronic bronchitis and idiopathic
pulmonary fibrosis.

The
respiratory system serves as the interface for an organism with its gaseous
environment. As a consequence, the respiratory system is the target for
airborne pathogens, especially viruses and bacteria and inhaled toxic gases,
including air pollutants such as ozone and environmental tobacco smoke. Because
the respiratory system also receives the entire output from the right side of
the heart, the respiratory system is a target for blood-borne toxicants and
pathogens and a site of sequestration for metastasizing tumors. Defining the
pathobiology of disease processes in the respiratory system and establishing
effective therapeutic approaches is complicated by the high degree of cellular
and architectural complexity of the system. The course addresses major disease
issues associated with the respiratory system. Because of the complexity of the
respiratory system and the need to understand the basic mechanisms regulating
the respiratory system's response to disease processes, the approach is highly interdisciplinary and
multidisciplinary integrated.